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I had a brief dance with blonde for two weeks this month but alas, decided it wasn’t for me.

So I’m back to ginger in full force and my makeup game was STRONG yesterday so OBVIOUSLY that means I whipped out the camera and took some new shots.

Luci stopped by and “guarded” me while I was shooting, so I got a couple shots in with him too.

I particularly enjoy the last picture in this set, but it just reminds me that I really need to invest in a backdrop. The garage door is a great white canvas most of the time. But sometimes I really just want a plain, untextured background. It’s on my to do list.

Photographer’s choice!? You know what that means – definitely a selfie.

My neighbor’s cat and I have a mutual love thing going on and he popped up during my shoot after I got my hair done (hellooooo ORANGE! ginger). As you can see, I use a little remote to achieve these photos and cradling him for pictures often means it pops up into view.

F-stop: f/1.8
Exp: 1/50
ISO: 400

35mm NIKKOR lens (have I mentioned how absolutely in love with this lens I am??)

Truthfully, I have been absolutely spanked by this year’s holiday season, but they’re finally over and I finally have consecutive days of time off coming up and I’m thrilled because I have a bunch of stuff I need to do to “get my life back together” as it were.

I didn’t get a chance to post week one within week one on here (but I did on Instagram, @vivianapodinaphotography) so I’m posting it at the beginning of week two here, because by the time I decide what I want to do for week two, it’ll be later in the week anyway.

So week one’s theme was “look ahead” – cause you know, new year, new goals and stuff like that. It’s coupled with the category vision.

We’ve been letting my neighbor’s cat come inside cause it’s super cold out lately (like, single digit and negatives) so he can have a snack and enjoy some warmth for a bit. Anyway, a few days ago he was making himself at home in my room and I found the perfect opportunity to not only take pictures of him because he’s my favorite kitty, but also, he stares off at things a lot – so you know, how can I pass up the cliche gazing in the distance opportunity?

Anyway, the first photo is the one I used for the challenge because it’s clear, but I shot him in full manual and I captured a few others I really liked. The second is a full manual shot, but it’s a bit blurry where I wish it wouldn’t be.

I find the trouble with shooting full manual is often that staring through a tiny peephole, I can’t always gauge whether my focus is going to come out like I think it will when I actually snap the photo. But we’ll see, maybe I’ll get better at it this year.

For those of you who see this on Facebook, you might already know that I’ve been giving my neighbor’s cats snacks. They come meow at our door every day now that they know they’re gonna get food, and I’m okay with that cause they’re skinny and skinny cats make me sad.

Anyway, one of the cats, Lucy (short for Lucifer) is super friendly and loves being petted and often sits in our grass after eating. He kind of looks like he’s protecting the house when he does this.

I’ve photographed him before while he’s been sitting in our grass, but comparatively, my skills at both photography and photo-editing have gotten better in the 5 and a half years since. For comparison’s sake, I’m going to upload the picture from a few years ago too.

The first 2 are from this September.

The picture below is from May 2011. My personal critiques are that my photography was a lot more closed in on subjects. I was pretty obsessed with getting that macro effect, which didn’t allow much space to the subject at hand in the frame. I’m still working on this part because I feel like I close in too much still, but I’m improving.

I also overused really saturated actions and curves in Photoshop. I’m pretty proud of my current more natural, vibrant, color boosting system I use.

I was also using a Nikon d3000 with the kit lens on the below picture, whereas in the new photos, I’m using a d7100 with a 50mm portrait lens. So that also factors in – BUT, I did take some great photos toward the end of my ownership with the d3100. But this particular photo is from the first year I owned it and was learning my way around a DSLR.